As the middle school musical “Goosebumps” approaches, the cast, crew and staff get excited about the upcoming production. The musical will be presented to the entire middle school during Community Time on Thursday, May 8.
Goosebumps is a mystery about a school that is putting on a production called “The Phantom.”
“When they’re rehearsing the play, they keep being disrupted by a phantom. And the whole mystery in the play is: Real? Not real? Who could it be?” theater teacher Michael Nevarez said. “So there’s supposedly a curse on the play.”
Eighth grader and cast member Chloé Christofferson-Jackson, who participated in the last musical, is more excited about this one.
“I feel like this one was a lot more planned out and put together than the last one,” Christofferson-Jackson said.
Pre-performance, Christofferson-Jackson uses a shakeout technique by shaking each limb to calm her nerves.
“Count down from a specific number, and you do one hand, the other hand. Then you do one foot, and the other foot. It helps me get focused,” Christofferson-Jackson said.
Seventh grader Faith Mu has extensive experience in acting and singing. She has participated in musicals since fourth grade.
“That’s when I started getting interested, but this is my first musical at UPrep,” Mu said.
Despite the challenges and nerves that come from musicals, Mu feels performing is an overall positive experience, especially with her peers.
“I really like my castmates or teammates. They’re awesome,” Mu said.
Mu said she loves her role. She plays a character with a personality that closely resembles her own.
“He’s really similar to me because of his bubbly personality,” Mu said.
Nevarez, a first-year teacher at UPrep, is leading the school musical this year. Nevarez said that the cast consists of 19 members.
“When you have a bigger cast, it’s a lot of energy on stage,” Nevarez said.
Nevarez said that the musical would be something “everybody here is going to enjoy.”
This is the first time in a while that UPrep has been able to do a musical “to celebrate something so iconic in pop culture,” Nevarez said.